Transformative Leadership, Faith & Resilience with Dr. Denise Patrick

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Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast. Today, I have Dr. Denise Patrick here to speak with us on transformative leadership through faith and resilience. Dr. Denise has in a very interesting career, spanning over three decades, from a professor to a founder and CEO of D-Patrick Consulting. Also, a creative guide about teach lead inspire. Thank you so much, Denise, for being here.

Thank you so much, Melissa. It is my pleasure to be here. I'm excited to talk with you today about all of this and then some. Right? I know. We have a lot of questions for you, lots of cover. I always like to start just hearing a little bit about how you got where you are today and just sharing your journey with our listeners. I always like that question. It makes me feel like I'm in a job interview. Tell me about yourself, right? And where do you punctuate it?

So for me, I think the easiest way to have people understand my journey is that it is not linear by any stretch of the imagination. It is twisty, turny, backing up, starting over again, all kinds of things. And the way that I think I'll punctuate it is I started my career. My first first jobs were in investment banking. And I swore that I was going to be a managing director, either in that investment banking firm or someplace else.

I mean, that was my goal. And then I ended up going to graduate school and studying rhetoric and communication. And then my world sort of opened up. So I missed the finance world a bit and I missed corporate. But wow, this whole world opened up for me. And so I focused on that and ended up actually doing consulting because I was a hungry graduate student, but doing some consulting. And then also teaching. And so I think from there, my world just really became academic and business.

And I've always had one foot in both of those worlds. And so by the time I got to think about having my own consultancy was because I was doing internal consulting for a major bank. And then I thought, wow, this is what you get to do. You get to talk to really senior people. You get to listen to them learn from them. And then I just decided, I'm going to start my business. So I actually started probably 30, a little over 30, almost 30 maybe years ago, where it was called something else.

But no, I want it to be my particular brand, de-patric consulting. And now I am happy to say that I am sunsetting de-patric consulting as a predominant business and now turn to teach lead inspire, which has really always been my passion because it embraces ministry, which is something I just have always loved. I thought I would go into a full-time ministry and become ordained, tried, did not do it, decided that was not the ministry that I was called to do.

The ministry that I'm called to do is actually to teach lead inspire. So I get to consult, I get to talk with very senior executives or people who are in middle management or senior management. And I also get to talk about their faith walk or even just their values and how to help them figure out value system in the workplace, as well as doing some fun business, see kinds of things about helping people communicate, helping people lead.

I love it. I'm so excited to talk about faith based leadership. I'm curious, Dr. Patrick, from your perspective, tell us a little bit about integrating faith and spirituality into leadership. Yeah, I like that question. I've been listening to some podcasts recently about that just to hear how different people talk about leadership and faith and how you blend the two.

I'll start by saying that I think because of the way that we work, at least in the US particularly, so I'm going to base it US and I could probably make an argument for some other countries that do this. Everything is very separate. So you can talk faith on the weekend, right? But Monday through Friday, none of that is involved. And so it becomes challenging and it has even been for me really to figure out how do you bring your full self into the workplace.

For some, when they look at research, it has become, and I'm talking academic research and I'm talking just contemporary, right, business research, right, or we call popular research. When we talk about it, it has become now businesses or organizations figuring out how to bring e employee resource groups together. And so now we might have affinity groups. I think trying to think American airlines might be one. There are a couple of others that do it and I'm blanking on them right now.

But they now have affinity groups for people in the organization to go and to collect together whether they are interfaith or whether they are specific faith. And we have some challenges down the road because of some of the legalities that we have set up and what you can do and how you talk about these things and who gets included if it doesn't.

But if you're just trying to bring your full self into the organization or into a company, what I have done that has been successful for me is to just be. And so you bring yourself, you bring your moral compass, you bring your faith, face, principle into the workplace and that doesn't mean that you have to slam somebody over the head. I'm Christian so that doesn't mean I slam the Bible over somebody's head. I'm very careful about that, but I live the principles.

I'm marrying faith and leadership means that you are bringing your principle self into the workplace and you are leading people by those principles. I love that and I love what you said, you're spot on when you say, you know, your spiritual life doesn't just happen during the weekend or on Sundays when you go to church because I do find it's, it's transaction.

I'm a good Christian or whatever your religion is and then I go back to work on Monday and I lead a very different life on Monday to Friday versus when I'm at church on Sunday.

So I like to lean into that in a little bit and ask you how faith has influenced your approach to leadership and decision making outside of just like you mentioned Sundays Monday to Friday. So I have a couple of notes here that I'm going to probably peek off to because I really gave that some thought and I wanted to make sure that I could give some good crystal ideas about how I really get to bring that into my life and how others can do that.

I think that my faith walk has like I said, I think alluded to a little earlier has given me principles, right. So when we talk about morals, I always ask the question, where are you getting them from right, how is that happening. For me, it is it is a Christian background that doesn't mean that I don't respect other faith walks, but for me, that's how I make it work. So when I make decisions, I am reminded about what I read in scripture, what do verses tell me about making decisions.

It reminds me to practice the gift of grace very often being compassionate as well. And also upholding myself and others to accountability. And there are proverbs that talk about how we want to mindfully make decisions who we go to in terms of getting counsel for certain decisions that we make.

And then a great book that that delts into this a little bit more it's called God is my CEO and the author is Larry Julian. And in one of the narratives in that book he talks about I think it's a process course is one of them Jeff recalls. And then the first one's last name is back then it I think I have to look let me, let me peak because I don't want to miss state that I believe it is. Oh, I was right.

No, no, it's Maryland. Oh, this is a Maryland Carlson Nelson. That's the person I'm thinking of. And then the former chair and CEO of Carlson travel and for both of those people they struggled with how do we make decisions and bring our full cells into this and lead a whole company and do that.

And then the next question is, how do I teach people the principles of making sure that they either pray about something before they go off and make a big decision or do I say, you know what I want you to take some time and think through the decision that you're trying to make.

And then the next question is, what is the project side of that you know come up with your evidence right and all the things that we need but also instead of trying to jump with emotion first which is where a lot of us tend to go. It's just take a moment and just think through it and kind of quiet your mind a little bit before you make those decisions. So those kinds of approaches.

So I know there's a lot of different things that work for me and I try to remember to do it. Do I always do it 100% of the time? No, but when I don't do it, I also know, let me go back and revisit this and let me know, think and pray about it for myself or let me just think and maybe meditate on this. So that I make a better decision or can go back and revise it.

Absolutely, and I think we're all working in progress right we're all working on something and then we think we haven't figured out and life serves us a new experience and then we, you know, we relearn and unlearn things and so I want to talk a little bit about some examples on healthy based principles guide ethical decision making and leadership from your perspective.

So I think maybe it helps to maybe define some of those terms a little bit so that so I know we're all on the same page. So I'll start with this is great because like it's a go down to like my academic side. I love this right. One thing is to look at faith and what that is and then there's spirit and then there's spiritual okay and then spirituality right so we can go down that whole rabbit hole but I'll start with faith so the word faith in Greek which I love this I love this word is peace.

Right and peace these actually means it's a faith it's belief it's trust it's confidence it's fidelity it's faithfulness and it's also understanding that in that Greek context that it is faith is a gift from God right so this is what that word means it means that faith is a person as a persuasion from God that we receive okay so there's that first piece.

Next piece then is the spiritual right so spiritual is an adjective right in our common language in English we talk about faith and spirituality and we tend to blend the two. There is a little bit of a difference so if we look at the word spirit and this is where my Greek gets a little messy right it's actually pneumaticos right so pneumatic also if you think of the main word of.

Numa right if you think of pneumonia right that's our breath right our spirit okay and so the spirit in our breath right that's a little bit different than faith that we might think about but they are connected so I want to connect those two first before I can even get into the principles of how I make this work so for me if I pull all of these together and I think about faith and spirituality are spiritual for me.

I lead with a gift from above right and I have faith that is given to me through might not through my works but sometimes a bit based on works and I'm going to have some theologians somewhere say no no no that is not correct but I'm trying to get it so that people understand it all right so this is not a theological you know argument right here I can make that but I don't want to make it right here right so if I think about it it really is belonging to the day.

It really is belonging to the divine spirit so for me as a leader if I am a part of that tribe or a part of the discipleship I'll use that term that is of the divine spirit then I need to lead from that okay with me so far. So if I lead from that perspective then my principles are all going to be based on what I am learning through my scripture so that means if I have an argument or I have a problem with someone I need to go to that person directly.

It also means I can't assume that what I say is going to be understood by that other person that I need to always check in and make sure that we are on the same page that's two third one is going to be let me think about how I am compassionate with that individual or how I hold myself and that other person to accountability. All of those things are the principles that help me guide faithfully and also spiritually.

I love it and that was fantastic and I love the education side of you to pull things apart. I was thinking I travel a lot and I see a new trend happening in airports, meditation areas, yoga areas, prayer areas, all different types of faith based spiritual based spots within places for people to meditate or pray.

Can you share a little bit about what you are seeing in the corporate world with faith and spirituality. Yes so there are some businesses I think I mentioned one American Airlines and some others that I could even think of no Chick-fil-A for example right which are hobby lobby right those tend to be in the secular world so to speak they are faith based American Airlines is not.

They are the secular organization but in bringing some of these practices in I think what organizations have realized I believe this even gets supported by Pew study some of the Pew studies and some others I think Forbes did a study on them. So I think that there is a lot of people that are not in the same way as they are in the same way as they are in the same way as they are.

And so I think what has happened over the years in my experience particularly through consultants I realize this is anecdotal but we have gotten treated almost like machinery. I think that if you will and I would bet that some people have felt that way particularly during the great resignation right that you feel like there is kind of a machine that there is no human side to you.

And so I think where organizations have started to move is to say all right we need to provide opportunities or experiences for people to bring their true whole selves to work. And in a higher ed I know in one of the organizations where I teach in one of the institutions where I teach it's always better practice to say hey you know if it's Ramadan and people need to pray on or off of a fast then as instructors we need to provide that space and that flexibility for that student to do that right.

If it is Friday and there are classes classes and you have Jewish students who need to be home before sundown and that changes right given the season then you know hey let's not have classes you know that bump up against that time so that the students can get home same thing with having prayer space or yoga space it's bringing someone's whole self in so that they can be more not just productive.

But so that they can become more comfortable feel included and feel valued in that work space and that's what I think we're starting to see in the corporate sector is that we're trying to really find different ways to help people feel valued respected and also that they are part of the organization and can bring the whole selves in.

That's great makes me think I'm curious how companies are fostering that awareness throughout all their employees of different cultures different background different religions are there any practices that you're seeing companies put in place for you know maybe Christians that don't understand the Jewish religion or other religions or other.

You know practices are there any companies that you think are doing it successfully and basically raising awareness among their employees to respect the different religions it's so interesting I I had two or three and I so just blanked on and I'm like I'm saying you're searching right on my on my computer right now like where is it I know I had these names on here.

There here we go I knew I would find it okay so so there are there are a couple of companies that do this it says here I'm going to quote this that corporate America as a tipping point toward giving religion similar attention to some of the other diversity identities given the other major diversity categories and that's from Brian Graham who's the founder and president of the religious freedom and business foundation so I'm taking this quote directly.

From this person some of the companies are Apple Dell American Express I'm looking at this article right now where he's quoted and Goldman Sachs and target Facebook believe it or not and then alphabet and Intel so some of those companies I think what they have done is to provide interfaith dialogue or you make it part of the diversity.

And so interface dialogue comes becomes very interesting because you do get to have space where you have lunch whatever it is right maybe some intra intra organizational documents or on the website where you just begin to say hey you know it's Ramadan.

If you don't know anything about it maybe you know this is a great time and if someone is is comfortable to ask well you know oh well are you going to Moscow we go to church and then you have this really great informal dialogue or oh hey I noticed that it's.

I'll gosh with that forum for example right and I know forum looks like Halloween okay so is it Halloween like what is that and why why are you dressing up in the Jewish community for forum and how did children become involved right and then you get to talk about very simple things about you know what's similar what's different or oh okay you can't work on this particular day we understand why higher ed is really good at that at least where I am and where I was in New York.

Because if it's a Jewish holiday and it's a high holiday then there is no technology that gets used and so if you are an instructor and you have an assignment what you try to do is say okay I don't want it done over that weekend right or i'm going to provide that student some extra time to do it so it just helps those are some very simple practices I think that can work.

So are you do you have any strategies that you can share about how leaders can transform their mindset so I know in the world today we're like meeting and meeting and meeting and meeting and meeting and we're really all day you know attacking our day is there any.

Strategies that you can share with our listeners on how to transform their mindset whether or Christian or a yogi or you know whatever whatever their beliefs are okay so one of the things that I love is talking about mental models and Peter send a talks about this and his book that the discipline and when we think about mental models we're talking about is.

The way that we think because of our life experiences and also what we've been taught whether it's school or church synagogue mosque etc right just or nothing right right we we don't have any of that but whatever we've been taught and so there are three ways that I can think of explicitly that can help us begin to.

Re-shape our mental models the first one is to be aware of our thinking right we want to be aware of how we're thinking and maybe even kind of delve into where did I learn this from where did I get my mental mapping from where not mapping but are my mental thinking from.

How did this model come to be so I might want to ask myself um provoking questions and maybe you can just kind of reason through my own assumptions so I assume a person is going to feel or think a certain way because of how that person looks or how that person dresses or we don't even have to be just faith-based it can be anything I want to begin to challenge those assumptions.

The second thing that I can do is to inquire into how others are thinking maybe engage in some kind of meaningful dialogue and and realize that in these two things that I'm talking about I'm talking about intra personal communication which is how I'm communicating with myself and then enter personal communication how am I communicating with someone else what dialogue and I have and it's really asking those questions that help me challenge my own thinking and maybe.

Maybe we'll challenge somebody else's thinking as well in a respectful way. The third thing that I can think of is to showcase my own advocacy or our advocacy so maybe I'll use examples or facts or information that I have that I can gather to show support for my viewpoints or if I'm speaking on behalf of someone else I might show evidence or support or facts or even stories or narratives.

About how I can support someone else but all of this happens really through this idea of dialogue and communication. That's great. I think about one of my favorite words Dr Denise is resilience. I love that word. I think that life is going to happen to all of us.

We're going to have challenges and struggles and tough times and good times and one of the the practice is I practice is really having being resilient having a growth mindset and a lot of that comes from my faith and my belief system as you were talking a little bit about so I guess my question is how can we teach that to leaders in the face of adversity how to be resilient how to have faith that you know the world.

That you know the world's not happening at you it's you know happening for you in some cases right I think you know a lot of times I hear from people and they've they've gotten fired from a job and they're like oh you know it's you know they get angry and all the things that go and sad and all the emotions that go into that and I always look at it from a place of well gosh think about how exciting this is now you can pivot your life and pivot your career and pick up and move and

recreate and re-craft what you're going to do next and so I want to talk a little bit about building resilience as it pertains to faith and spirituality and love the way that you frame that Melissa because it's true we can have these traumas that happened to us.

We lose a job something happens if we're very very senior in the organization where ooh something's happening with legislature and you've got to deal with that if you're a CEO right a particularly a large organization you've got to deal with that and maybe you weren't anticipating this so so what do you do how do you deal with this well the first thing I love how you alluded to some of the steps of grief right we we get sad we get angry

we might become a little frustrated we might be in denial at some point right but we have to walk through some of those stages of a grief right particularly if we lose a job right or something like that or a downsize out or right sized out the other things that we can do I think I have about four or five but I can share with you all I'll see how I can get through these quickly is to one be a self aware

self aware and also practice reflection so if we're if we're feeling angry or we're feeling upset or frustrated or scared that's another one we don't really talk about that right we might be scared about something I want to be able to be aware of what I am feeling in that moment and to be able to reflect on that and make that time to be able to reflect

and so the more I'm in the practice of self reflecting right the more it becomes a habit for me to do that the more and be able I will be able to understand my strengths understand maybe where some of my trouble spots are so journal if you're in the middle of that you know write down if you're a journaling kind of person right down what you're thinking it doesn't have to be

radically correct you don't have to have all the punctuation of just shut it out just to get it out of your head the second thing is and I've learned this not just from research or my own practice but just also talking with C suite executives and that's a big part of the process is to develop a support system we've got to have a support system for some of us for some of us it can be my church family for example or my you know my faith

family for others it can be a combination it can be my faith based family my own blood family it can be friends it could be a trusted person in her workplace but you want to have that network that's around you so when you say oh my gosh I'll use your example I've lost my job that you can go and then they can rally around you and they might ask you some great questions

and then you can say some of the things that you said as you were framing your question wait I know this is trouble somewhere I know this is frustrating or you're angry or upset but maybe this is a great opportunity for you to try something different or to do that thing that you've always talked about doing for the past 20 years that's what my friends did for me which is why I can pivot and to teach lead inspire pretty comfortably

the third one I would think is to manage stress this is very challenging for a lot of us right I'm sure for yourself right as you're nodding along you're thinking yeah manage stress how do I do that when do I do that for some of us it is exercise for some of us I think exercising becomes a

stress stress inducing because we might not do it quite as often as we like but it could be just I'm gonna go for a walk or if you're really into the gym I'm going to the gym I love doing it really early in the morning it's all the indoor friends it's all that negative energy out of my system

some other practices of mindfulness prayer if you are a praying person that's a great time if you are not a praying person meditating right even if you are a praying person right meditating just finding that quiet time I actually said this to someone a couple of weeks ago

who was sharing a really stressful day and I said well you know what why don't you just go grab your partner and go stand outside on your porch for five minutes maybe 10 I know it's really hot outside but just say hey you know what I need to feel a connection right now I've had a really stressful day

and I haven't really had an opportunity to connect to connect with you so I'm going to stand outside with my partner and just look at the sun right or you know something simple so I think those three I know I had five but I'm gonna I'm gonna pause there with those three that's great I think you know resilience I love that word the other word I think that comes in my when you were talking is positive mindset you know you may wake up get out of bed and stub your toe

walk to the coffee pot and spill coffee start on your drive to work and your stuck in traffic and your days just you know pam pam pam not going as planned and I think to what you were saying to step back and what can we control well the only thing we can control is how we react to what's happening so we can't move all the cars in Austin faster but we can turn on music or a podcaster something that brings us joy and calms us down and I think that's a practice I practice quite a bit

if something's happening to me I don't take it personally I stop and I try to control myself and bring my positive energy my positive vibes and sometimes like you message it's mentioned it's it's it's prayer it's exercise it's stepping outside it's going to get my male it's calling a family member but you nailed it too with community

community is I would say one of the most important things if you're a leader and having a sounding board of people to say hey I've lost my job can you put out your feelers of anybody that's xyz or I'll take a temp job or you know I have some friends of mine that were in the sea sweet and are driving Uber to to to just communicate with people and I think like you said stress is really hard and it's really hard to do

hard and it's really hard to keep that positive resilient mindset and I think you hit so many of my points I wanted to talk a little bit about those mindsets mindsets as your career of all

as you go from a manager to a director to a VP and however you want to go up the corporate food chain or owning your own business how are those mindsets so important as you evolve your professional you read my mind because in as you were talking I thought oh but they're all such different mindsets they're not even the same

I think each one can build off of a previous one right certainly and so there are certain things that get into our muscle memory if you will because as a pre manager right you just start in your career you learn certain things right so the people my students who are undergrad who are out there in the work

because they are learning how to not take things so personally or okay I know you want to say something about this right now but maybe this isn't the time to say this in the workplace and so they're learning those things at the beginning of their professional careers as you move up I'm going to skip through some layers

but you know as you get to particularly executive level you begin to get to the level where there are certain things you cannot talk about with your community so you have to figure out ways to talk about maybe how you're feeling or how that day is going but you can't talk about now I for example I sit on a board right so I sit on a board for a for college

there are certain things I cannot talk about I cannot I cannot share there are see three people who I know in my circle there are certain things they cannot share but they do need to think about how do they take care of their their whole cells or mental health so this is where a trusted partner comes in this is where having a therapist comes in for some it might be a pastor again using a Christian background right so somebody who is a faith leader

that you know that you can talk to in confidence where you know that that is never going anywhere right and maybe that's where you begin to have those conversations so your mindset at a very high level is very very different than it is say at the beginning of your career

it really takes practice in resilience I would say by the time you get to owning your own business or being in that sea suite or being on a board it just it is such practice some of the things that you do where you say okay I know I can't talk about it so let me figure out a different way to relieve stress that I might be going through

I want to be able to do that and you can do that almost second nature there are certain things that happen I think that you might not anticipate where you need that community to say hey listen I'm going through some stuff could you please pray for me or hey I'm going through some stuff and I just said this to a sea suite member the other day I'm like you know what I'm thinking about you I'm praying about you praying for you

thank you that don't need to tell me anymore I don't even know all the details right but I think that kind of mindset mindfulness is truly important and so significant the way that you go for your trajectory in your work career

oh yeah absolutely I think I hadn't experienced recently with the woman like he said I'm praying for you those little words are so powerful I was recently with my kids somewhere and this woman was struggling with three kids struggling stressed out the kids were yelling screaming and she she was borderline and tears and I went over to entertain one of her her kids

and I leaned to her and said you're doing a really great job and those words were free so easy to say and so honest and because on the exterior we make an assumption that she's either not managing her children or not whatever people make the assumption but really she's trying her best and those three little words made and shifted that woman's mood

and she almost tears she's tearing up like thankful thank you nobody tells me that you know I feel like I'm doing doing doing for everyone I never get to hear that so I think to your point telling people that you believe in them and that you're praying for them and they're doing a good job whether they're your co-workers your peers your family your friends those mean so much to people

and they don't cost anything and I think one of my first and favorite mentors was my mom and she always taught me she always led by example like if she told me to make my bed she made her bed

if whatever it was that she was coaching me on she was doing and I was you know kind of you know as a child as we grow we are like curious George we replicate and copy what our parents do and kind of tying it back to what she was saying for leaders is you know being comfortable with being vulnerable with your people

and telling them like you were saying at the beginning just being honest with them if they make a mistake teach them how to do it right have their back and say you're going to do a great next time we all make mistakes you're learning and that is very different than saying you messed up now we can't do the presentation great we're going to be late because of you

and it those kind of comments really affect people's day and if you can you know be an inspiring and motivational leader I think you'll get sure people to do yeah I don't know into that a little bit more because I like again I like the way that you frame that it's it's almost like how I think about communication right so you send the message and then there's the receiving side of it right it's the same thing with leadership there's the leading side of it but there's also the followership side of it

and we want to understand both sides of this if we're poor listeners we don't get a message right so if somebody sending me a message the no hey you know could you do this presentation in this way and I'm not listening fully then I'm probably going to miss some key points and maybe I will mess it up and I do need to take accountability for that

it's the same thing with following to your point about what you do with that woman is a great way you will following but you also turned into a leader at the same time right so following and kind of watching but then to be able to say something to her and then to step in and to you know maybe work with one of her kids like hey you know we're going to work and adjust you know redirect for a second over here that moves into leadership all of us get to do the same thing with their leaders

there are moments where we as followers have to step in even if it's just for a moment and become the leader so when you see somebody especially at the top of the organization I have such a passion for C suite executives I always have my entire life I have just had a passion for those at the top of the organization because those of us who follow and I've made this mistake myself I am not immune to it I look at a leader and I go oh I'm not immune to it

look at a leader and I go oh you don't know what you're doing like I could do better right all right we don't know what is going on in that lead leaders personal life professional life or what have you and so while I may have the feeling of yeah I don't really like that decision that you made I have to respect the office if you will and so be a great follower is to say as you as you talked about in a moment it's just a great way to do it

in a moment it's free it's simple and you don't know how you can turn that leader's moment around is to say I'm going to take a leadership moment and say you know what not really throw with that decision but man that must have been very hard to come to that particular decision and I respect you for doing that and putting in the work to do that I just wanted to say thank you

yeah exactly I think you know I think in talking about trust and openness I know Renee round talks a lot about being vulnerable and being vulnerable with you know all different people in your life and as it pertains to faith right like not everybody has integrity not everybody was taught and

and not everybody knows how to be a person with integrity and I think as it leads back to faith and leadership and I know you do you touch a little bit at the beginning about talking to people right if somebody did something that was maybe not moral or you know they shouldn't have talking to them and better understanding their side of what happened

because there are as we know two sides of you know one story the other story is probably somewhere in the middle understanding their side of it being transparent and open and vulnerable and hitting it direct with them and maybe they didn't even realize they were doing something that wasn't you know that they shouldn't be doing I wanted it just kind of get your thoughts on you know trust openness being vulnerable

and maybe trying to get back to you know faith yeah I I think we can start with trust I think that such a it's a beautiful word that can certainly get misused and abused it's very easy to initially put our trust in the way we are

putting our trust in people and I'm about to preach so pardon me for a second right sorry it's very easy to put our trust in people tying it back to faith means that I can have confidence in people when I see integrity or that they're ethical or you know they're doing the right thing very right

they're really trying they're behaving the way that you know our moral society says that we need to behave but my trust isn't necessarily in that person in the spiritual sense tying it back to faith my trace my trust is in my higher being which is in God

I always keep my trust in him capital age right if I always put my trust in him it's going to be easier for me to deal across with people because from me then I have to build my integrity from the the link of the trust that I have in my higher being in God

now how does that work either because there were two other words you gave me and I want to do this and I just went down a rabble hole you said trust and what was the other being open and maybe what it means you know being open is being vulnerable right it's kind of similar okay similar words so if I'm open or if I want to be open I can be vulnerable it's because my trust is somewhat in the human it's but confidence right

back to the piece that I talked about earlier right that faith I have confidence in that person because of how that individual and I interact that I can be vulnerable and I can be open that but ultimately my ultimate faith trust vulnerability is going to be with God

that's going to give me a foundation now for me personally if people don't believe this when I tell them is I'm not always vulnerable right and sometimes that comes to us maybe because of trauma that's happened to us or you know some triggers some experience that may may have had in our lives

and so it takes us a little longer to be open or a little longer to be vulnerable we have to really learn through that nobody round talks about that a bit right in her birthday is it dare right how we have to really learn to become vulnerable and to trust a situation a context and individual in the confidence that we have in that person that that person will not harm us that person will occur to

because if that happens openness vulnerability and trust in those individuals guess what happens to that by and how long does it take to build that back forever no one has ever right forever forever forever so I think if if we can remember as leaders to realize that we are fallible beings right do we we mess up

we make mistakes we say the wrong things at the wrong time sometimes to say the wrong things at the right time right but we're not perfect we are all imperfect and so the more that I can remember to bring my full divine spirit to a situation the better I will be does that mean that I'm going to be 100% I said no I'm not going to be because I'm also fallible right

but that means if I make that mistake with an individual or with a group of individuals that I have to take accountability to say hey you know what sorry I messed up your trust or hey I might have caused you to not be as open with me this is how I think I did it let's have a conversation about that so we can you know reconcil

that's great in closing I just wanted to get any final thoughts perspectives or anything maybe we missed that you want to share with our listeners I think some final thoughts would be maybe a couple of my pillars that I operate under with teach lead inspire I've got seven I like a seven is a perfect number but I'm not going to share all seven right I'll share a couple

one is to think about transformative influence and what I mean by that is empowering people to become catalyst for innovation and also transformation one of the things that I I like to do is to transform people by taking their life challenges and helping them turn them into leadership strengths so as leaders we want to remember

to pull the terms transformative influence into our vocabulary I think the second that I think is fostering that resilience that we just talked about right not just for yourselves but how do we do that for others the people that we lead how do we encourage them and and help them become more resilient at whatever level they may be in in the learning process

and then I think the third one which I really really try to do and I just encourage and I think you alluded to it earlier is one of the third pillars that I have is compassionate service when we're in a leadership role and there are so many people that talk about this now right you know Simon Sinek right talk about in leaders eat last right right

we are in a position to serve others we are in a position to lead an organization but we're also in a position to serve others and so if we can remember that and remember that we want to do this with compassion with integrity with ethics with accountability all of those terms that we like to throw into our corporate

and we can remember to do that I just think it's such a powerful thing that we can do as a leader and it makes us feel better it makes us lead better and it makes other people follow better and it makes other people step up to the plate to lead absolutely I agree with all of that I look forward to reading more of your your inspiring book stories and I'm looking forward to hearing what you're doing next that's not out yet

thank you so much Dr. Janice for being on the podcast today and sharing all your insights with our listeners we appreciate you being here today thank you thank you so much I enjoyed this conversation so thank you for for having me here and I hope that this was helpful for someone out there that's the executive connect podcast you you you you [BLANK_AUDIO]